Conservatives obsess about the Founding Fathers for a Reason

[cthulu2016]

America, the nation we live in, was really born in the 1860s.

The original America was an operating system binding together a collection of largely autonomous States, allowing those States to function as a powerful centralized nation for certain purposes. Those states could ban books, have religious tests for office, or even establish that certain human ethnicities were not even human.

Post Civil War America was a new experiment where States were clearly subordinate to the broader nation and (through the gradual incorporation of the 14th Amendment) the individual's primary relationship was with the federal government and the federal Constitution, with all local governments required to be miniature versions of the Federal government, with the ideals and limitations established in the Constitution. The Bill of Rights changed from a set of limitations on the federal government to a set of human rights applicable always and everywhere within the USA.

It is a different conception of the American experiment. The first conception had failed (primarily because some States used their autonomy to continue and entrench slavery) and was replaced with a powerful federal central government and a unitary identity as America.

America 1800 is just not the same type of nation as America 1900. There are a lot of formal similarities, but the USA without States rights is a very different way of U-ing the S of A.


The America that conservatives pine for is pre-Lincoln America. Pre-14th Amendment America.

And that America is as defunct as the old South.


None of this takes away from the genius or good intentions of the founding fathers. The original USA experiment was a great thing by the standards of 1800.

But pining for it makes as much sense as pining for the Athens of Pericles. It is an historical relic, superseded by subsequent human moral progress.

[Wounded Bear]

1. I agree in many ways....

I think that much of the whole Obamacare resistance is a re-emergence of the tired old states rights issues that culminated in the Civil War. If you look at a lot of the RW rhetoric, they're already voicing that kind of thought.

Which, of course, means that Obamacare is just a bellwether, a trigger of sorts, that reflects something deeper.

[HereSince1628]

8. Yes, what is sought is a coalition of states...the Kochoid States of America if you will

United only by white papers written of for and by ALEC committees that substitute for the thoughtful consideration of statesmen seeking to represent the will and needs of their voting constituents.

A weak federal government is required for this goal to be realized. A federal government without the strength to regulate things like environment, labor and food safety, etc. A federal government that could NEVER regulate a balance in international trade using tariffs or taxation.

A federal government that could force corporations to be anchored in a nation and tied to obligations, like TAXES associated with such a mooring.

[Wounded Bear]

9. Pretty much....

The corporate mindset can be a bit baffling. You would think that a unified national policy set would be best for large corporations, instead of 50 of them. Less overhead. But that is offset by the weakness of the individual states. Like you say, they can be more easily bribed and brow beaten into compliance with bad practices.

By fragmenting the states away from the federal government, they accelerate the race to the bottom for the rest of us.

[HereSince1628]

11. Yes, and they can get states to vote on the basis of local benefits of pieces

of activity, that overall, are bad for the nation and the world.

For example...

Wisconsin can opt for putting up with silicosis, water table disruption, and ruining county roads to have a thousand or so jobs mining and trucking sand that's needed for fraking.

Texas can opt for using scarce water and creating water shortages to provide water and jobs in fraking.

The Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma can opt for pipelines and a few hundred temporary jobs building them to carry corrosively dirty oil to refineries in distant places so oil refinery pollution happens in some other person's backyard.

And places like Chicago and Detroit can store pet. coke in rusty urban wastelands adjacent to impoverished and powerless neighborhoods.

Of course, keeping state and local governments in desperate need for projects that produce jobs only as permanent as a wealth extraction project is important to having the states in perennial dependence upon corporate 'largesse'.

And the use of fossil fuel will continue to contribute to pollution and climate change.

[mucifer]

2. In the book "Team of Rivals" it is stated that President Lincoln did believe the founding fathers

were antislavery and it would take time to get us to a point where slavery was outlawed.

I'm not agreeing with that theory. I'm just pointing out that was Lincoln's POV according to the book. Sorry I don't have the page number or exact quote. I'm throwing it out there for discussion.

Personally, it gives me the heebie geebies when people talk about worshiping the founding fathers when they allowed slavery to exist here. I agree with the OP.

[cthulu2016]

3. The Constitution envisioned Slavery fading away

In the Constitution the importation of slaves was banned starting in 1820 (I think, but maybe 1810) and I was widely assumed that America would follow the rest of the world, which was walking away from slavery during the period.

The entrenchment of slavery as defining cultural fetish, and rejection of Britain's war on slavery, by the South were unforeseen.

But even if foreseen, it's not like banning slavery in the original Constitution was an option. Like Obamacare, the US Constitution was a practical thing representing the best deal available at the time.

[mucifer]

4. But, there many of the founding fathers had their own slaves.

Hypocrisy and greed.

[Nye Bevan]

5. Yeah, if Jefferson was "antislavery" he had a funny way of showing it.

Owned hundreds of slaves and slept with at least one of them.

I'm more a John Adams fan myself. He talked the talk and walked the walk, refusing to have anything to do with slavery.

[Wounded Bear]

6. Perhaps....

I'm not doubting your opinion, just expounding on the thought proposed.

It has long been my contention that one reason the Southern states joined the Revolution had to do with the growing anti-slavery movement in England at the time. Shortly thereafter, and I don't recall when, they banned it throughout the Empire. Frankly, the South was busy setting up an extension of the landed aristocracy prevalent in England at the time. From that perspective, they-or at least the PTB-were reluctant rebels from the start.

But their adherence to the slave-based economy forced them to form the coalition with the New England 'merchants' (meaning: smugglers ).

[cthulu2016]

7. Good point and good post

Something we are a little ashamed to teach properly is that America was like the Alamo of chatel slavery... everyone else in the European ethical-sphere had abandonned slavery. It was just us and Brazil.

Texas is part of the USA today because Mexico banned slavery, "forcing" Texas to secede from Mexico to retain their horrible institution.

[Wounded Bear]

10. In my admittedly poor understanding of history...

the whole 'states rights' meme has always been used in the defense of the most deplorable societal institutions and conditions.

The entirety of the Civil Rights movement IMHO was the Federal government attacking and states righters defending their 'right' to be assholes. There's not much more to it.

[treestar]

12. Yes.

and they are still obsessing over the 17th Amendment for direct election of Senators. They really are pathetic. I really think they'd be happy with an Establishment of Religion, so long as it was theirs.

[Demo_Chris]

13. I think you are overcomplicating it...

First, the Founders are culturally identified as being "great men" allowing their use as an appeal to authority. After all, if a great man like Jefferson or Paine said it, who are you to argue? The same logical fallacy applies indirectly to the nation they established, the ORIGINAL United States. Everyone is indoctrinated to love their country, and the first draft was as close to the "real" America as one can get.

Further, those who use this device do not feel themselves bound by any need for accuracy. They are free to take quotes out of context, invent them as necessary, and cite an America that never actually existed. When Paul Revere went on his famous midnight drive, honking his horn and yelling that the Liberals were coming, he was warning the colonists against tax increasing gun grabbing socialists.

[53tammy]

14. "do not feel themselves bound by any need for accuracy"

^^^ I think is closer to the point, just as with other romanticized ideals of Ronald Reagan, the bible and Ayn Rand